Santa Barbara Amorphous-15(SBA-15) is an interesting mesoporous
silica material with highly ordered nanopores and a large surface area. Due to
its unique properties, this material has been widely employed in many areas.
This study aimed to predict the number of nanopores per gram of SBA-15 material
based on an optimum value of surfactant addition at the desired number of
nanopores. For this purpose, SBA-15 was synthesized via a sol-gel process using
tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS, Si(OC2H5)4) as
a precursor and pluronic P123 triblock copolymer surfactant (EO20PO70EO20,
EO = ethylene oxide, PO = propylene oxide) as a template. There were five
different surfactant concentrations, namely 0.35, 2.50, 2.70, 3.00, and 3.30
millimoles, used with a fixed concentration of TEOS. The characterization was
performed using small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), adsorption-desorption
(BET), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results showed that the
surfactant concentration did not affect the crystal structure, although an
increase in the surfactant concentration linearly correlated with an increase
in the surface area. The shape and size of the pore diameter tends to be
approximately 3 nm, as characterized using BET adsorption-desorption. The
optimum concentration of surfactant for the formation of mesoporous SBA-15
material was 2.70 millimoles. The value obtained in this study was in
accordance with the calculated value, indicating that the theoretical
calculations can be used to experimentally predict the number of pores.